Martin praises squad ahead of Braintree match

9 August 2018

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Martin Allen has praised his squad ahead of Saturday's game at home to Braintree Town.

The manager has been very impressed by the attitude shown by all of the players, whether they have been playing in matches or not. He said: “We’ve got loads of players who can go in and play in a winning team. It’s such a good squad of players, such a good group of people and they all blend in together on and off the pitch.

"The other night Joe Anyon wasn’t involved and nor was George Smith, but both of them were in the dressing room from start to finish, both of them were there backing the team, looking after the team and doing their best for the team even though I wasn’t able to get them on the bench. This is what we need - we need everybody.”

Martin also gave his thoughts on the Braintree Town side and his respect for the league newcomers who were promoted from the National League South.

“Any club that gets promoted is a good club, they’re very well organised and they’ve got a very highly-rated young manger," he said. "Any club that gets promoted from that league must be doing things the right way. There’s no doubt it’s going to be a really tough game for us as they’ve got some good players.”

“We’ve had them watched a couple of times. We’ve watched videos of them here early this morning and I’m probably going to say the same thing week in, week out - total respect for them as a football club and we’ve got to treat this as our next cup final.”